Lisa and Dan Macheca’s transformation of a Gothic church into The Clifton Heights Inn had heavenly results.

The couple carved out three guest rooms from the former Fry Memorial Methodist Church’s religious education classrooms, each with an elegant bath. They also converted the church’s sanctuary into a different type of event space that still radiates beauty and peace. An intricate stained glass story window provides a dramatic backdrop for weddings, meetings, parties, and private dinners.

Before taking ownership, in 2004, the couple had long admired the building, built in 1905 in sleepy Clifton Heights. “Dan’s sister lives three houses down, so we were aware of the property,” Lisa says. “The congregation had dwindled to just 19 members. We knew it was going to be sold.”

The initial idea was to make the church the couple’s primary residence and later operate it as a bed and breakfast. “We had raised our three daughters to their teenage years in Webster and were ready for a change,” Lisa says. The couple estimated that the renovation would take five years. The work was completed 12 years later.

First they reworked the church’s social hall into a family room, kitchen, and workshop. The classrooms turned into makeshift bedrooms for the girls; Dan and Lisa claimed the pastor’s study as the master bedroom.

“After we moved in, we saw water spots on the plaster ceiling. The roof needed to be replaced,” Lisa says.

The couple soon learned, when plaster started falling from the walls, that the building needed to be tuckpointed. “My husband was good with a sledgehammer,” Lisa says. “We removed every bit of plaster to the brick—which helped to relieve tension!”

In addition to structural repairs, the two replaced the knob-and-tube wiring with new electric and split the space into five heating and cooling zones to keep costs down.

Four years ago, as the building was finally being stabilized, Lisa and Dan turned to architect Anthony Duncan to finish the project.

“Our firm is familiar with repurposing older buildings,” Duncan says. “Everything starts with a set of drawings.”

“The sanctuary was one long, huge room,” Duncan says. “We used the grand staircase to divide it into a more intimate and usable space. The staircase provides a great entrance for brides.”

Dan built the staircase. “He’s a master craftsman,” says Duncan. “What makes this space so special are the small bits, the work of craftsmen, that Dan and Lisa incorporated.”

Sometime this summer, the Machecas will complete a fourth guest room in the bell tower. “Instead of a horizontal plan, the space unfolds vertically in four levels: from the entry to the bedroom to the bathroom to the hot tub on the roof,” says Lisa.

From the rooftop, on the third-highest hill in St. Louis, guests in the bell tower can regard the city, spread out before them.